Kismet (1944)

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Movie
German title Kismet
Original title Kismet
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1944
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director William Dieterle
script Edward Knoblock ,
John Meehan
production Everett Riskin for MGM
music Herbert Stothart
camera Charles Rosher
cut Ben Lewis
occupation

Kismet is an American fantasy film from 1944 based on the play of the same name by Edward Knoblock. The film is also known under the title The Caliph of Baghdad . This Technicolor film was directed by William Dieterle . The leading roles are cast with Ronald Colman , Marlene Dietrich and James Craig .

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards in 1945 .

action

Hafiz is the king among the beggars in Baghdad . He even has two personal assistants, Moolah and Feisal, who keep an eye on where begging is particularly lucrative. It is always the case that he receives the great gifts and the rest of the beggars have to be content with the crumbs. The beggar king has very special plans with his beautiful daughter Marsinah. He wants to marry her off to the grand vizier , a wealthy, influential man. Marsinah, however, has fallen in love with the son of a gardener, who reciprocates her feelings. The young woman does not know that he is actually the Caliph of Baghdad. In order to advance his plans, Hafiz pretends to be the "Prince of Hassia" and thus gains access to the grand vizier's court . There he meets Jamilla, who is considered the queen among the dancers of Baghdad. Since Hafiz is a handsome and handsome man without his beggar's costume, the affection he feels for the beautiful dancer is reciprocated by her.

By chance Hafiz learns that the Grand Vizier hates the Caliph of Baghdad, who is far above him in rank, so much that he even wants to have him killed. That gives him the idea of ​​being invited directly by the Grand Vizier as the “Prince of Hassia”, which he succeeds in doing. His plan to persuade the Grand Vizier that his dancers are not good enough and that he therefore wants to give him his daughter Marsinah works for the time being. However, Marsinah defies his will. She definitely does not want to become the grand vizier's favorite wife. Her love belongs to the "gardener's boy", as she believes, and for that she wants to fight. To make matters worse, the police arrive and arrest Hafiz because he has appropriated the fine clothes that he needed as the "Prince of Hassia" without payment. He is brought before the Grand Vizier, who is to pronounce the judgment. Hafiz knows that such a theft can end with the thief having both hands cut off. He ponders how he can get the Grand Vizier to spare him. He manages to convince him that he will manage to kill the caliph. And besides, he would get his beautiful daughter on top of that. Marsinah is taken to the palace. The young woman is unable to defend herself against the superior force. She will now take the place of Jamilla. But Jamilla sticks to Hafiz, even when she learns who he really is. However, Hafiz's plan to kill the caliph does not work and he has to flee from his palace. Under the threat of imprisonment, combined with his imminent death, Hafiz realizes that he has acted wrongly in relation to his daughter. He wants to free her and Jamilla from the palace of the grand vizier, which ends with him killing him in a fight. He was arrested shortly afterwards.

His daughter Marsinah, however, now knows that “her gardener boy” is the Caliph of Baghdad. Both want to get married as soon as possible. And on the occasion of his wedding, the caliph pardons the father of his bride and assures him that he will now actually make him Prince of Hassia. To do this, however, he is first expelled from the country in order to be able to return as “Prince of Hassia”. Jamilla accompanies Hafiz when he leaves the country.

Production and Background

Shooting for the film began on August 27, 1943 and lasted until January 4, 1944, with further shooting on January 27, 1944 and March 3, 1944. The film was shot in the Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios in Culver City , USA. The film had a budget of $ 3 million (estimated). Kismet premiered on August 22, 1944 at the Astor Theater in New York . In October 1944, the film was then generally shown in cinemas in the United States. It started in the Federal Republic of Germany on June 17, 1950.

William Powell was tested for the role of the beggar in this film . By Richard Carlson trial recordings were filmed as caliph. For the role of Jamilla, test recordings were made by Vera Zorina , Virginia Bruce and Marilyn Maxwell . Kismet was the only film that Marlene Dietrich shot for MGM . For the dance scene (“Dance of Jamilla, the queen of the dancers of Baghdad”), her legs were covered with four layers of gold bronze in two steps. Each shift took about an hour under the guidance of MGM's makeup artist, Edith Wilson. In addition, Marlene Dietrich's blond hair was sprinkled with gold dust. Her trousers, which consisted of strung together chains, threatened to break during the dance movements, so that they had to be changed. Representatives of the Hays Office - the official censors of the American film productions at the time - took offense several times at Marlene Dietrich's costume, especially at the items of clothing that only consisted of individual chain links. Dietrich had to wear skin-colored underwear under her costume and her navel was also not allowed to be shown.

Yvonne De Carlo had a small role in the Queen's entourage without being mentioned in the end credits.

Further films

The first version of the film was produced by Zenith Pictures in Great Britain in 1914. Directed by Leedham Bantock acted Oscar ash in the lead role. The first American film adaptation was made in 1920 under the direction of Louis J. Gasnier with Otis Skinner . In 1930 Skinner took over the lead role again in the sound film version by Warner Brothers , directed by John Francis Dillon . His daughter was played by Loretta Young . William Dieterle shot a version film at the same time with Gustav Fröhlich and Dita Parlo in the lead roles. An Indian film by Gyan Mukherjee from 1943 is also entitled Kismet . Another film adaptation of Kismet , this time as a musical , dated from 1955, directed by Vincente Minnelli for MGM . Howard Keel , Ann Blyth and Dolores Gray starred. In 1967 ABC produced a television version with José Ferrer and Anna Maria Alberghetti in the leading roles. In 1998 Billy Wirth made a short film with Stephanie Niznik and Garry Marshall under the title Kismet .

To avoid confusion with the 1955 version, the 1944 theatrical version was broadcast on US television under the title Oriental Dream .

Reviews

The critics rated the film rather moderate at the time. Paul P. Kennedy wrote when it appeared in the New York Times : “Marlene Dietrich has three major scenes and one or two minor scenes in the film, which adds up to a decent role, but what she adds to the whole is mostly that Lush display of her person in general and her much-used legs in particular ... ". Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune also made a similar judgment. He said that "Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich [...] play the main roles and [would] make sure that you stay aware of it" and went on to say that "the lure of Dietrich has never been so great were cannibalized. "

The TV magazine Pisma was of the opinion that "Marlene Dietrich" in this "1001 Nights story [...] looks little Arabic and looks like a beautiful foreign body" and that "Director Dieterle [...] probably thought that with Everything is allowed in a fairy tale. ”The final verdict was:“ Nevertheless: costumes and image design provide pleasant, albeit naive, entertainment. ”The lexicon of international films came to the conclusion:“ A picture book with attractive color effects; Hollywood peeps openly from under the oriental make-up. (Title also: 'The Caliph of Baghdad') "

Awards

The film was nominated for the trophy in four categories at the Academy Awards in 1945 :

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Kismet. In: Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved November 15, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Marlene Dietrich Your Films - Her Life by Leslie Frewin, Heyne Filmbibliothek No. 32/79, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich, 1984, p. 119
  3. ↑ Kismet. In: prisma.de . Retrieved November 15, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Kismet. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 15, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used